Friday, October 2, 2009

MoFo Day 2: Citrus curd and vanilla rum custard pie

Adventures continue over here in babyland. Emperor Babykins is settling into a sort of routine: he sleeps for about two hours, wakes up and eats on one side, gets his diaper changed, eats on the other side, goes back to sleep. Rinse and repeat all day and night long. Really not so bad, huh?

Anyway, I have no time to think about original content so I'm just going to post a recipe for the pie that I made right before I went into labor. The one that I made right before labor was with grapefruit, but really, you can use any kind of fresh citrus.

Citrus Curd and Vanilla-Rum Custard Pie

makes 2 9-inch pies

Use whatever citrus you feel like. Mixing and matching is fun. Meyer lemon and lime make for a good pairing but I'm sure you can think of something even more exciting, right?

Crust:

2c graham cracker crumbs

6 tbsps canola oil

4 tbsps brown sugar

1 tbsp citrus zest

2 tbsps rum

Custard:

2 boxes of vegan vanilla pudding mix (Jello pudding is vegan, but ONLY the full fat/full sugar cook'n'serve variety!)

4c almond milk

2 tbsps corn starch

2-4 tbsps rum

Citrus curd:

1 c fresh-squeezed citrus juice

1/2c water

1/2c brown sugar

1c white sugar

4 tbsps corn starch

zest of the citrus fruits you juiced

6 tbsps almond milk

2 tbsps Earth Balance or other vegan butter

Crust:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix all crust ingredients in a bowl.

3. Divide the crust mix into two 9 inch pie pans and press the crust into the pans.

4. Bake the crusts for 10 minutes, until nice and golden but not burnt.

Custard:

5. Stir together the pudding mix, almond milk, and corn starch in a sauce pan.

6. Heat on medium-high, stirring constantly, until the custard mix reaches a boil.

7. Allow the custard to boil for a minute WITHOUT stirring.

8. Stir in the rum, then allow custard to cool for five minutes.

9. Pour half the custard into one crust and half into the other. Smooth out with a spatula.

11. Bring to a boil over medium-high, stirring constantly, until curd reaches a boil.

12. Boil for a minute WITHOUT stirring.

13. Stir in the almond milk and the earth balance.

14. Let the curd cool for five minutes.

15. Pour half the curd into one crust (on top of custard) and half into the other. Smooth out with a spatula.

Pie!:

16. Put the completed pies in the fridge. They need at least 2 hours to set right, and I've found that the longer you cool them, the tastier they get.

16 sounds like a lot of steps, but I assure you, this is insanely easy and delicious pie. And I guess it'll always be special to me now. Aww.

By the way, the citrus curd is more or less Bryanna Clark-Grogan's incredibly excellent lemon curd from this post with a few little tweaks. Oh, how I wish someone would make me a cake like that wedding cake! Still... the curd is delicious in this pie. Make it!